An Even Harder Day

Yesterday was an exceptionally hard day. Today, was worse.

I think the mountain of turmoil I’ve been carrying hit its peak today.

I talked a little about the enormous pressure we’ve been under in my post, “1,000 pounds of pressure.”

Today, after reaching the summit of despair.. the pressure was very, very real.

I’d say the sequence of events had something to do with it, but I really do think the kettle reached its boiling point.

Where do I even start with the strange sequence of chaos that happened today..

Well, for starters, I hid in the trash chute room to try to hide from our neighbor because I couldn’t bear to face anyone.

After a good thirty seconds, I realized the elevator was going to take some time to come up.

It’s a small building, where you’re not just a number, and you can actually befriend your neighbors, so you can’t really be that kind of weirdo.

In our old building we totally could, because people were too checked out to care.

But here? Nope, it would seem sketchy.

So I did end up running into her, because it’s hard to kill two whole minutes in the trash chute room without seeming plain weird.

I was there because I was in the process of throwing out two whole pounds of freshly cooked chicken thighs that had gone bad.

I tried cooking them in hopes that the slightly off smell was just the unique smell of expensive special ordered chicken. When it didn’t go away after cooking the entire two pounds, and the small test piece made my belly feel a little funny, I knew I’d achieved defeat.

It turns out they really do mean “use from frozen,“ not “after they’ve been thawed out for several days.”

With a million little decisions decorating every day, a failed call about chicken felt enormous.

Plus, being a 90s kid with a mother who guilt tripped us every dinner over a small scrap of food left, meant feeling profound guilt as I asked God himself for forgiveness while I tossed it all out.

Before I embark into the rest of this riveting day of chaos, subscribe if you dig this level of real.

Why did I even pan fry two whole pounds of chicken thighs? I’m not sure, really, but the desperation that governed my life today seemed to inspire my decision for lunch.

Having a bulk stash of cooked chicken on hand seemed like the kind of life changing idea that could turn my whole eating habits around.

Surely, it would make a nice addition to any salad. Who doesn’t need an extra protein boost? Aside from competing bodybuilders, it’s a solid nutritional decision.

So a quick snack turned into a bulk chicken disaster, and a bulk chicken disaster turned into a hilarious encounter.

I’m sure our neighbor imagined me as one of those people with a picture perfect life before this. We do seem put together on the surface.

So she was probably a bit shocked when I spilled the beans about our small business being in the toilet, the economy tanking, and our plans to genuinely leave the country.

Plus, the fact that I couldn’t stop crying today.

I spilled so much, that I even forgot to ask her how her day was.

Frankly, I just couldn’t stop talking.

I cooked a chicken sausage after that. A pre packed, non expired chicken sausage.

A strange afternoon snack. But a snack, nontheless.

I deluded myself into thinking my sliced breakfast sausage with the Indian style fkatbread was somehow a Japanese meal.

That’s how badly I want to leave Seattle.

Maybe a Japanese person would want to eat this?

The nutritional content was better than a protein bar, so I was willing to accept my own lie.

In my weird despair, I finally got a few minutes to myself.

Our son was asleep.

My husband was at the gym.

Finally, I could indulge in a guilty pleasure of watching a relaxing video about Japan with no distractions.

As I sat down with my sliced sausage and Parattha, and Peruvian ceremonial cacao that I decided to whip up, a new plot twist happened.

My son immediately woke.

He makes these quirky sounds, instead of crying, which is nice.

But his funny call wasn’t exactly what I was expecting the second I sat down.

As if the couch cushion was a button to end his sleep cycle.

I sighed. What else was I to do, but have him join me?

I really did need some peace and calm after feeling suffocated by the pressure of life lately, but I didn’t have a choice.

I brought him to the living room, set up his play area, and watched my video as best I could.

Not even 5 minutes passed, when my husband came home. He was so excited about an advertising opportunity he discovered.

Now, before I explain this next piece, I’ll preface this with a quick overview of what it’s like working with your spouse.

It’s great, and it’s horrible.

You share the same deep, immense passion for building your dream together.

Yet, you’re also on call… 24/7.

Your boss can call you for a meeting while you’re taking a dump.

Have a great idea? Dinner becomes a business meeting.

We both have ADHD, so organizing our minds enough to only talk about work during certain times isn’t something we have the self control for.

So when times are tough.. pressure builds up.

And boy oh boy, did it build.

I sat there staring at him as if he were on crack at a funeral.

Like hearing anything work related was the last thing I wanted to do.

In fact, I didn’t even recall to tell him I just wasn’t in the right headspace to talk at that moment.

The pressure just boiled over.

In that moment, I couldn’t handle even thinking about trying to make anything else work.

I cried enough the day before about not being able to push more with the business.

After 4 years in a bad economy, and 3 years of trying to stabilize our small but meaningful endeavor… my nervous system was beyond fried.

Honestly, after a few minutes of discourse, I threw the remote in frustration.

I just wanted to relax and watch the damn show.

I’m ashamed to write this…

But I also understand how I got to that point.

I won’t excuse it, but I get it.

The homelessness is out of control where we live. The open drug use in the streets isn’t being taken care of by law enforcement. The politicians are useless.

The absent sense of safety has become all too normalized.

It’s hard, when it’s just you and your husband. It’s impossible, when you have a child.

It’s an incompatible environment.

My husband was upset with my reaction, but he totally understood me, too.

He said to me, after I calmed down, that while frogs in the jungle and frogs in a forest pond may be the same animal.. they can’t live in the same environment.

That this isn’t our environment.

After four years of trying to make it our environment, we’ve taken some time to accept that it’s just not our place.

I’ve been grieving that reality, all week.

Worried, for what comes next.

I don’t have the bandwidth to worry so much about the bigger problems in the world. My own world, has enough.

I’ll miss so much of this city, and there is so much I won’t miss, too.

I didn‘t know when I started this blog, exactly what I’d write about. I didn’t know I’d write so deeply, about this.

I’ve been overthinking so much lately, especially since I decided to share this blog on social media through ads and social pages. It’s easy to get caught up in vanity metrics.

But the real reason for doing this, was always to be more present, and to remember the important reason for any of this.

After a month of doomscrolling detox, this post makes it so clear why I wanted to doomscroll at all.

I knew I hated so much about our circumstances. But it was unbearable some days, and easier to numb out.

I kept trading toxic comfort for lucidity.

I traded my metamorphosis for it.

Every single day, in spite of literally going through the fire right now, I’ve taken one step closer to healing, and to starting our new life.

Every single day, instead of scrolling hours away, I’ve spent hours doing something, anything, more productive.

You know how we humans tend to reminisce about our dream life, or what an ideal day looks like?

Well, I’m getting closer and closer to that, at least with my routine.

There was never space for that to grow, with so much being taken up by the algorithm.

Almost four whole weeks have wrapped up and I’m really gaining insight as to how toxic that habit was, and how much it affected my clarity and attention span.

I’ve opened reels a few more times since then, and the most I’ve spent is 15 minutes. I felt like crap when I did that, even just once. Like, really crappy.

But other than a few small relapses, I’ve genuinely stayed true to the cause.

I’ll share more about my insights on how to successfully detox from doomscrolling, but for now, I’ll revel in the sunny sky of realization after a long, rough day.

Avoiding pain is also avoiding the healing from it. Avoiding healing, means avoiding change, and happiness.

Here’s to a planting more seeds, watering them, and watching them grow.

A brighter future is ahead.

Until next time, my friends.